Brewer's: Browse his Jib

(To ). A sailor's phrase, meaning to drink till the face is flushed and swollen. The jib means the face, and to browse here means “to fatten.”

The only correct form of the phrase, however, is “to bowse his jib.” To bowse the jib means to haul the sail taut; and as a metaphor signifies that a man is “tight.”

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